Posts Tagged ‘Travel and Tourism’

Before I left the USA to teach English in Korea, I got an eye infection in my left eye that lasted for 2 weeks. It was extremely painful and really scared me. I was told by my ophthalmologist that I needed to have my left eye removed because I was still at risk for getting more infections. When I asked him how much the surgery would cost, he said that I would have to call the eye center at UC Davis and get a price from them. I called them a few days later and they said the surgery was going to cost around $24,000. I didn’t have any insurance, so I would have to pay the full amount.

I knew there was no way for me to afford the surgery in the US.

Seven months later, I was in Korea teaching English. While in Korea, I decided to find an ophthalmologist in Korea. One who was recommended to me by another ophthalmologist in Mokpo. I scheduled an appointment with Dr. Yoon over the phone. While I was on the phone with Dr. Yoon he promised to have one of his assistant’s waiting for me in the waiting room on the date of my appointment.

The morning of my appointment, I took a taxi to the hospital.

“What’s your major problem?”

I didn’t know where to begin. I wasn’t used to being greeted at the door of a hospital. I was a little unnerved to be asked such a direct question after I had only taken less than two steps out of my taxi.

“Dr. Yoon.” I replied.

“OK, follow me.” replied a young doctor who appeared to be about 25 years old.

We walked through the waiting room full of Korean senior citizens in varying degrees of decline. Some had walkers, others sat uncomfortably as if they were waiting for a flight that had been delayed for over 10 years. We walked up to the second floor to see another waiting room filled with aging seniors. The young doctor asked me to sit down on a bench across from the elevator doors. In less than two minutes he returned and brought me into an examination room. I stared down the barrel of his eye examination equipment and tried to focus on an air balloon that was lifting off over a narrowing highway. Before I could get the balloon in focus the examination was over and he led me into another room. There was another doctor staring into a computer screen as we entered the room, as soon as he saw us come in he cleared out without saying a word. I sat on another examination chair and the young doctor told me that Dr. Yoon would be in shortly.

The door opened behind me and I was greeted by Dr. Yoon. He apologized for arriving late, I glanced over at a computer screen and checked the time, 10:12 am. “No problem, I’m glad that I could come and see you.” I said.

His first question was to ask me if I wanted eye surgery just for cosmetic purposes. I then went into my entire life history of having been blinded in my left eye by a rooster. After saying the word rooster Dr. Yoon’s head cocked slightly to the right, a non-verbal cue that he didn’t know the meaning of rooster. I then stuck my elbows out and flapped my arms while bobbing my head forward and pointing my nose out. “Oh, ok.” Replied Dr Yoon, acknowledging that he was following the story. I then told him about the fact that I had a slight scar on the left eye that was prone to infection and because of this I had to get the eye removed to avoid infections in the future. I also had an envelope full of documents in Korean and English that gave specifics on my eye problem. Dr. Yoon examined the documents and asked me who referred me to him. Luckily I had brought the business card with photo of my doctor in Mokpo. Dr. Yoon was very happy to see the card and said that he had lived in Mokpo for 10 years. Perfect, we were hitting it off so far. He then asked what city I was from in the US. I said San Francisco, knowing how much everyone in Korea loves San Francisco.

“Oh really, I studied at San Francisco State.”

It seemed that half of the Doctors in Korea have studied in California.

“What’s the name of the island there, Alcohol?” asked Dr. Yoon.

“Ah, Alcatraz, yes, have you been there?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Wow, I have always wanted to go there.” I remarked, not sure if I was thinking of alcohol or Alcatraz.

“Can you put your chin on the bar?” asked Dr. Yoon.

I leaned forward and stared into another eye exam machine. Dr. Yoon asked me to look right, left, up and down. After the exams there were several photos of my left eye on his computer screen. I could clearly see the stitches over my cornea.

“Wow, that’s the first time I have seen the scars from my eye surgery.”

Dr. Yoon then started to explain about my two surgery options; Evisceration or Enucleation. Evisceration would be the cheaper option in which he would just basically suck the soft center of my eye out and fill it with a porous material (like draining the center of a raw egg). He’d then attach a prosthesis to the outside of porous center which would look like my original eye looked before my accident, 30 years prior.

“This option is what I recommend for older patients. For younger patients like you, I recommend getting Enucleation. Enucleation is the complete removal of the eye. You will also have to wait a month before the prosthesis is reinserted into the socket. The advantage of this surgery would be that you will have a fuller range of movement with the new eye but you’d have to wear an eye patch for a month between the first surgery and the final insertion of the new eye,” he informed me.

I didn’t much like the idea of wearing an eye patch while teaching my students, but at least I’d be in Korea. None of my friends back home would see me with my eye patch.

Dr Yoon pulled out a book of artificial eyes from a drawer. All the eyes were different shades of brown.

“Will I be able to get a green eye instead of a brown one?” I asked.

Dr. Yoon cocked his head to the side and sucked wind through his teeth, indicating that I had asked an extremely difficult question. Dr. Yoon quickly fired off some questions to his younger assistant, who was standing behind him with his arms joined behind him. The younger doctor then went foraging through another drawer that was filled with business cards. He found the one which belonged to the doctor who makes the prosthesis. He dialed the other doctor on his cell phone and left the room. He came back a few minutes later and confirmed the other doctor could make a green eye for me.

There was just one more minor impediment, I still didn’t have medical insurance in Korea. So, Dr. Yoon told his assistant to call my work and see when I’d be able to get insurance. Dr. Yoon then pulled out his 2010-2011 schedule. It was the size of a telephone. In this book was a list of all the surgeries he had planned for that year. I estimated that he did about 25 eye surgeries a month. He only did surgeries on Friday which meant each Friday he had between five and six surgeries. He looked like he was fully booked until January 2011 but he offered to open a window for me at the end of October 2010.

“That would be fine with me.” I responded.

Dr. Yoon then closed his book and looked at me. “You’re not rich are you?” he more or less stated it as a declaration and less like a question.

I said that I wasn’t.

“Maybe we can adjust the price for you. It still will be a little expensive.”

“How much?”

He pulled out a paper and starting totaling all the services I would need. First there would be an admission exam $90, second was the price of the surgery $750 and third was the price of the prosthesis $1,500, which totaled $2,340 without insurance. With insurance I’d only have to pay half that.

After I got back to Mokpo I asked my dermatologist Dr. Seung about Dr. Yoon.

“He’s a bad guy.” Dr. Sueng said after staring into his desk with his hands crossed over his forehead.

“Is he sleeping with a lot of women or is it a drinking problem,” I asked.

Surprised at his own forwardness Dr. Sueng became uncomfortable with the conversation.

“He was bad to his students,” replied Dr. Sueng, still in a state of discomfort.

“Was he having sex with them?” I wondered out loud.

“No, he was taking money. He was in the newspapers and he had to leave Seoul,” Dr. Sueng reported without elaboration.

“From the students? I asked.

Dr. Sueng couldn’t share any more information with me. I guessed it wasn’t so much a language problem, it was more of an etiquette thing, in which doctors generally weren’t supposed to engage in gossip about other doctors.

“I don’t know his skill,” was the last piece of information I got about Dr. Yoon from Dr. Seung.

I started to panic. Should I go through a surgery with a doctor who may be a perfectly competent doctor although he extorts money from his students? I walked home in a daze. Needing some advice, I called Jackie.

“There are two kinds of hospitals in Korea. The ones that rich people go to that are located in Seoul which are modern, clean and have qualified doctors. The other kind of hospitals are all the others not located in Seoul, where the poor people go. These hospitals are viewed by Koreans as roughly the same as going to India for health care.” Jackie replied over the phone. I decided I should go to Seoul for surgery since that’s where all the rich people went to be treated for their medical problems.

I talked with my dentist, who had a sister working in Seoul at Samsung Hospital and she booked me an appointment with a doctor in Samsung Hospital. While checking the Samsung Hospital website, I saw that Samsung Hospital was affiliated with Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. I was also using a Samsung cell phone at the time which was pretty reliable so I decided this must be a sign. I arrived to Samsung Hospital at 8 a.m. Monday morning. There weren’t any doctors or interns waiting for me outside the hospital like my previous hospital visit. Samsung Hospital was huge, from the outside it looked to be at least 50 stories high. The inside looked like an M.C. Escher drawing, there were staircases winding in every direction. The information desk was unmanned so I decided to go to the pharmacy where there was one hospital employee hunched over her desk looking into a drawer. I showed her my appointment slip and she pointed at the opposite corner of the hospital. I wasn’t sure if she meant go down the hallway at the corner of the hospital or go upstairs. I decided to ask a guy who was dressed in a business suit talking on his cell phone. As soon as he saw my appointment slip he hung up his cell phone and we went on a mad chase around the hospital. We ended up in the International Clinic.

The first thing I saw when I got to this wing of the hospital was a stack of English language newspapers sitting on a table in the waiting room. There was one receptionist typing into her computer at the front. When she saw me walk in, she spoke loudly towards the back room in Korean. A minute later another receptionist came out from the back and started to talk to me. She looked at my slip and said that I needed to go back to the first floor where the Ophthalmology wing was located. I gave a heavy sigh indicating that I wanted her to carry me down there but she was already wishing me good luck and she walked back to the back room. As a means to further my inconvenience to her I asked if I could bring the stack of newspapers with me.

“They are for our patients,” she explained.

Darn it, foiled again. I receded back through the automatic doors and went to the Ophthalmology wing. I grabbed a ticket from the automatic ticket machine. After taking a ticket, the receptionist said to me. “Now closed, waiting.” I checked my Samsung cell phone and was pleased that it had only taken 35 minutes for me to find my appointment location. Promptly at 9:00 a.m. I was registered in the hospital and directed to another waiting room. 10 minutes later I was called to take an eye exam. For the thousandth time in my life they asked me to cover my right eye and read the letters and numbers off the board. I decided not to try and explain that I was blind in my left eye, I just said the number four about 17 times and the eye screener took away my eye cover to indicate that the test was over and I sat back in the waiting room. I then took one more test and by 10 a.m. I saw my first doctor. She looked to be about 17 but was very kind and didn’t seem to be offended in the least when I admitted that I couldn’t speak Korean. We chatted for about 10 minutes and she took notes on her computer about how long I had been in Korea and when I first started having problems with my left eye. She covered my right eye first with her hand and shined her light over my left eye to check to see if I could sense light. I felt relieved after this moment and started to relax. I told her that my left eye couldn’t sense light but I could see the light with my right eye through the cracks between her fingers. If I were to guess, I would guess that not many patients failed the light test. I was already setting records in my new hospital.

After our brief interaction, I was ushered back into the waiting room. As soon as I sat down another patient told me to put my jacket back on. I was too tired to put it back on and reminded me what month it was. I was too tired not to conform December rule of always wearing my jacket no matter what the temperature was indoors. I settled by draping it over the front of me and went to sleep instantly.

A few minutes later, I was awoken by another hospital employee and led into another room. This time the doctor was 20 years older and she had a team of medical staff working behind her. Her first question was to ask if I spoke Korean. I told her I didn’t and she then asked me why I didn’t get the surgery done in the US. I told her that I didn’t have medical insurance in the US. She then asked me if I had insurance in Korea. I said that I had just gotten it from my academy. She recommended that I get an Evisceration surgery which was less evasive than the Enucleation surgery. I told her that my last doctor, Dr. Yoon recommended that I get Enucleation surgery done. She asked why he would recommend that surgery and I got out my paperwork from Dr. Yoon.

“You have been studying about this surgery?” she asked, with a hint disbelief.

“Yes, I thought that the Evisceration surgery was only for older patients.” I replied.

She defended the Evisceration by noting that the recovery time was quicker and the results better. I was a little relieved that this doctor was taking the ball out of my hands and telling me which surgery I needed. We then discussed which orbital implant I wanted. I said that I wanted the Bio-Eye (made out of corral reef), the most expensive one they had. We made an appointment for surgery later the following month.

The night before my surgery date, I received a text message from Samsung Hospital informing me of all the things I needed to bring with me to the hospital: soap, bedding, slippers, water bottle, cup and a towel. The text message also said that I shouldn’t leave Mokpo until they called me and confirmed that there was a bed available for me. Ignoring the second part of the message I left Mokpo the day of the surgery at 6 a.m. I reasoned with myself that even if I got there three hours early and there was no bed for me, I could spend the extra time talking with my dermatologist and urologist who were also working at the same hospital.

As expected, I arrived to the hospital three hours early with no bed waiting for me. This was no problem since I still had to see my dermatologist before being admitted to my room. My dermatologist said he was prepared to operate on my backside to remove a cyst but said he would prefer to wait until I got my eye surgery, so we scheduled an appointment for the Friday after my eye surgery.

As soon as I went back to the ophthalmology wing, my room was ready. It was a double room and I could see that I had a roommate behind the curtain next to my bed. It sounded like he was sleeping, so I decided just to move my things in quietly and take all the extra layers of clothing off I had brought with me. The first thing I noticed about the room was that the bed had sheets and a blanket on it so it was unnecessary for me to have brought my sleeping bag along with me. Oh well. I moved the rest of my things into the room and decided to get a magazine out and do a little reading. The overhead light was burnt out so I rotated my body 180 degrees and used the light from the hall to illuminate my magazine. After reading for a half hour I decided to call one of my nurse friends working at the hospital. I had met her during my previous visit. She was nice enough to help me schedule my appointment, which I couldn’t do by myself because the person working in the scheduling department didn’t speak English. Inha answered the phone and surprisingly she remembered who I was. I told her which room I was staying in and she promised to visit me the next day. It was nice to have a friend working on the inside.

A few minutes later the charge nurse came in to welcome me. By this time my roommate was awake and he turned out to be another American who was from New York. His name was Stradlin and he said that he’d been living in Korea off and on since the 1970′s. He also had a heavily-bandaged head and a patch over his left eye from surgery. In Korea, Stradlin worked as an actor in Seoul and was married to a very beautiful Korean woman. He was also finishing up the last four pages of his book in the hospital. I remembered seeing Stradlin’s name on the outside door of our room listed as, “Stradlin Izzy.” At the time I thought it was a strange name. I wondered why they had arranged his name to neatly fit with Korean-formatted names (last name before first name) but mine was still in the North American format. I guessed this meant that Stradlin had been accepted into Korean culture because they listed his last name first and his first name last.

“It was as if someone pulled a lampshade over my eyes. Two years ago the lamp shade was 25% closed, a year ago it was 50% and two weeks ago it was at 98%.” Stradlin quickly jumped into his vision history of how cataracts had slowly eroded his vision.

I didn’t really understand what he was talking about, so instead of replying to his initial thread of conversation, I started talking about Korea and how long each of us had been here. Shortly after we had started getting to know each other, I let the cat out of the bag and told Stradlin that I was working on a book about Korea.

“Oh really, I’m also working on a book.” Stradlin replied.

“What’s your book about?” I asked.

“It’s about a family living in a Post Apocalyptic New England town.” Stradlin answered.

“Oh yeah, like the movie that came out last year, The Road, did you see it?” I asked.

“What are you talking about?” replied Stradlin with a touch of anger.

(Awkward pause)

I decided to change the subject by asking him if I could read the pages he’d just written while in the hospital.

“These pages will be worth millions once your book gets on the New York Times Best Seller List.” I joked as I looked the pages over.

“Yeah, kind of like the original ten commandments.” he countered.

It seemed like we were off to a positive start. I was trying to make a connection with him so I wouldn’t have to worry about him going through my pants pockets while I was in surgery. The next few hours were a verbal pillaging of the soul of Stradlin. Who knows when was the last time he had the chance to speak with another American. He told me a story about a time he went to visit his blind cousin in Maryland when he was only six years old. “The only thing I can remember is that he was touching my face for a very long time, I think that’s the longest anyone has touched me face before.”

He then told me a little more about his book publisher who was living in Tokyo. “The guy’s an idiot, he’s 62 and has just had his 6th child with his 3rd wife. What kind of a life is that kid going to have?”

Stradlin’s idea of a two way conversation was verifying the name of the city where I was from every 15 minutes or so. “You’re from Chino, right?”

“No, Chico.”

“Is that near LA?”

Then we’d get into the same revolving door conversation about how Chico kind of sounded like Chino, but aside from the name, geographically speaking it wasn’t in Southern California nor did it have a famous prison.

My cell phone started ring. “Brian, it’s Young. How are you? Are you in Samsung Hospital?”

“Yes, I’m in Samsung Hospital,” I responded.

“Good, when is your surgery?” he asked.

“Tomorrow,” I responded.

“Brian, I am going to call my friend who is the CEO of Samsung Hospital and tell him that you’re my friend. I need to know which room you are in,” instructed Young.

I went outside and read the number off my hospital room door. “I’m in room 758,” I said through the phone to Young.

“OK, don’t worry. I will make sure my friend knows who you are. I will come with SooHee to visit you after your surgery.” It was the first time in my life that I ever felt happy to be getting surgery in a hospital.

“OK Young, Thank you. I’ll talk to you after my surgery,” I responded before hanging up.

After hanging up the nurse came in to install my catheter. As she was installing the catheter, Stradlin came over to my bed to take a closer look at the procedure. He noticed me gritting my teeth.

“What’s the matter, you afraid of needles? They don’t bother me, I can take a needle in the arm, in the eye, up the ass, don’t bother me a bit.” Then he casually took a stroll into the hall to call his wife on the cell phone. After the catheter was installed our American dinners arrived to the room. Stradlin informed me that each American meal would cost an extra $23USD on my bill. Or, I could have Korean food for free. I decided to change my meals to Korean after that. As I was eating Stradlin wheeled his food tray up next to mine.

“They gave me local anesthetic, I was awake the whole time. I watched them as they stuck a 4-inch (10.63 centimeters) needle into my eye. It was supposed to kill the pain, didn’t really work. Then they started cutting at my eye and pulled the lens out like a Chinese noodle. I watched the whole thing,” he reported.

“When will you get your vision back?” I asked.

“It will take months, the doctor says that I should come back in three weeks. I can’t shampoo my hair for another two weeks, I can’t drink any alcohol for another three months or have sex with my wife either.” The whole reality of what I was really here to do started to sink in.

The next morning the nurses woke me up at 6 a.m. and gave me my full ration of food, pills, IV’s and asked me about my most recent bowel movement. Surgery was still four hours away, but I guessed they wanted to make sure my body was still in good enough condition to carry everything out as planned. I spent the next four hours watching a slightly sound-delayed version of CNN. The voices of the broadcasters could never quite keep up with their lips.

Before I knew it the nurses came for me and told me it was time for surgery. They told me to take off my underwear and socks. I got back into my bed just in my gown. They wheeled me into the hallway and I started my journey to the elevator. We went one floor down and I was wheeled down another hallway through some automatic doors. My first conversation was with an anesthesiologist. He explained which drugs I’d be getting.

“Will it be general or local anesthetic?” I asked, trying not to bite through my lip.

“General” replied the anesthesiologist.

I wanted to give him a kiss. Instead, I signed the paperwork and met with another doctor who I couldn’t recognize because she was wearing a face mask, until I heard her voice. It was the voice of the most famous eye surgeon in Korea, Dr. Kim Duck (as well as the best name of any doctor in any country).

“Brian, I got a call from the CEO of Samsung Hospital. He wishes you a successful surgery,” proclaimed Dr. Kim Duck. It was one of the few times in life I felt important.

I was starting to feel more confident. They wheeled my through another set of automatic doors and finally I was in the operating room of the space ship. I had to transfer from my bed on wheels onto the operating table. I looked over at the operating table and noticed that instead of a pillow, there was a blue gel donut. I assumed it was there for either displaying bowling balls or more likely, that is where my head would lie while I was having surgery. I transferred my body onto the operating table and lied flat on the table. Something wasn’t right, I could feel my head wasn’t properly aligned with the gel donut, so I scooted down the table a few inches, then leaned my head back down. I still couldn’t get it on top of the donut. This went on for another six minutes. Finally all the doctors lined up around the table and gave me oral instructions on how to get my head onto the donut. Unfortunately their instructions were all in metric, so I had to do my best and guess how much distance three centimeters was. Finally I got my head onto the donut. As soon as I was in place, they pulled the sheets up around me and folded me into the bed like a mummy. Next thing I knew, they are strapping the gas mask onto my face. I waited for someone to ask me to start counting backwards. Nothing. Don’t they know that in order for the sleeping gas to take effect, you must count backwards or it doesn’t work? Is this thing even hooked up to the gas? I better start breathing through my nose, so I can smell if there’s gas in this coming in or not. All I could smell was the plastic from the mask. Are they going to warn me when the gas starts? Maybe I should just rest my eyes here for a second….

The next thing I know, I wake up back in my room. Stradlin is still watching CNN and my head is pounding. I ask Stradlin to turn the volume down while my three nurses try to get my body in the right position in bed. Stradlin turns the TV off.

“Pain killer, please,” I mumbled to the nurses as they were rolling me into bed.

The nurses instantly went scrambling out into the hallway to fetch my meds. I had a short conversation with Stradlin about my last experience with taking Vicoden after I got my wisdom teeth taken out. Before I finished the story, I was given a glass of water and some pills. “Probably not anything that going to make me feel too psychedelic but who knows,” I thought to myself. I popped the pills, made sure that the rails were up on my bed and took a nice nap. The next ten hours are spent sleeping, eating and listening to Stradlin talk to his wife over the phone while in bed. It sounded like she wanted to come over tonight to sleep with Stradlin, but he tells her to get her work done first and then come in the following day.

“I’m hoping the doctor will let me go tomorrow,” these were the last words I heard before falling back to sleep.

I wake up again a few hours later and Stradlin says he’ll be staying in the hospital for another two days. I tell him that it’s better to be in the hospital than at home in case something goes wrong.

“I don’t believe in over-billing my health care provider. I could have stayed in a one bed room but am trying to keep health care costs down. My whole stay is covered here in the hospital, I don’t even have a $25 co-pay….”

In mid sentence the doctor came in to take Stradlin’s blood pressure. “Aw Doc, I have something that’s called white collar hypertension, I get an elevated heartbeat every time a doctor takes my blood pressure,” Stradlin reached into his pocket to show the doctor receipts from the auto pulse taker from the first floor of the hospital, “See, 116 over 70,” he exclaimed as he put the printed receipts of his blood pressure into the doctor’s front pocket. “I’m still planning on losing some weight, I want to get back down to my college weight which was 190 pounds, I only have 30 more pounds to go.”

Sometime shortly after the doctor left, I felt the bandage on my face. It felt as if there was about 20 pounds of cotton packed into the bandage. The pain wasn’t that bad unless I looked to my left or blinked too much. I decided just to let my right eye stayed closed, thus limiting the movement of my other eye. Every twenty minutes I had a little tear drainage from my left eye.

I got my first visitors to the hospital an hour or so later. SooHee and Young came to visit me. I couldn’t really open my eye for too much time so I mostly just talked to them with my eye closed. While we were talking, Young held my hand and prayed with me in English and Korean.

“Brian, did Dr. Kim Duck say anything to you about receiving a call?”

“Yes, she said she received a call from the CEO of the hospital. He encouraged her to give the patient in room 758 a successful surgery.”

I couldn’t see Young’s face, but I knew that he was very pleased when he heard this news.

I was thousands of miles from home, but the CEO of Samsung Hospital knew who I was and was making sure I was properly taken care of. While they were in the room with me I would blink my right eye open for a second every half minute. That’s as long as I could keep my right eye open without causing my left eye discomfort. During one of the times I blinked my eye open, I saw that they brought me a box of fruit juices, a bag of donuts and a box of oranges. They couldn’t stay for too long but brought a week’s worth of food. I was happy to know I’d have some snacks around to break up the monotony.

The next day Stradlin’s wife came over and she was definitely very pretty and probably 30 years younger than Stradlin. They had apparently met on the set of a Korean TV show called Giant. According to Stradlin he had a semi-steady acting gig as a US Army Colonel on the program.

When Stradlin’s wife asked him how he was doing his answer was flawless.

“Honey, I’m fine. The only problem in my life at the moment is that my tenet who’s living in my house in New York is thinking about moving out of the house. He’s been there nine and a half years, he’s worried about his job security and wants to find a cheaper house,” Stradlin informed his wife.

“What time will you be discharged tomorrow?” Stradlin’s wife asked.

“I want to see the doctor after lunch and then we can leave,” Stradlin replied.

“Is there a reason why you can’t see the doctor before lunch.” trying her best to hurry along the process.

“Naw, honey, we already made an appointment, besides, I want to get a meal before I leave,” replied Stradlin.

“This is why the Korean health care system is in crisis….” she cut herself off before finishing. I decided to take a walk and let Stradlin and his wife brainstorm ideas about solving South Korea’s health care crisis.

The following night was pretty casual, the only problem I had while sleeping was that the pulse reader kept slipping off my finger and that in turn would set the alarms off warning the nurses that I no longer had a pulse. This of course couldn’t be solved by simply putting the pulse reader back on my finger, the whole machine needed to be reset. I had a nice night’s sleep aside from the pulse reader slipping off twice. I had another half day to enjoy listening to Stradlin and his wife discuss how much work she was missing by coming to the hospital and at what time she could go home. I secretly wondered to myself why anyone gets married in the first place.

Before Stradlin left he gave me his business card and repeated the name of the city where I lived in the US to prove he was paying attention. “Not quite, I live in a place that sounds like Chino but isn’t on the coast nor is it in Southern California.”

I thanked him for being my roommate and wished him a quick recovery.

Later that day, I was moved into my new room which had six beds instead of two. For the next four days, I would wake up each morning at 6 a.m., go in to have my vision in my right eye checked and then have a doctor unbandage me and look at my left eye. I would then go back upstairs for breakfast and pills. Four days later I was out of the hospital and looking forward to teaching one day of class and then going on vacation for another four days. I left the hospital with a backpack full of drugs and instructions to come back to the hospital in two weeks so they could do a follow-up exam of my eye. I ended going back to Samsung Hospital once in February and six times in March before I finally got my replacement artificial eye. When my new doctor, Dr. Park took his first look at my new prosthetic eye he gave me a look commonly given when you accidentally get egg shells into the omelet. It wasn’t very reassuring. I wondered to myself if maybe the new eye was maybe the wrong color staring down and to the left.

“Different pupil color,” apologized Dr. Park.

After a couple more moments of uncertainty, Dr. Park agreed to give me a mirror and let me take a view for myself. I half expected to have been given an orange wolf’s eye. Some of the doctors’ assistants came into the room and were smiling pleasantly at me over Dr. Park’s shoulder as I checked out my new eye. It was eerily similar to my real eye, so much so that it took a few seconds for it to sink in that the new eye didn’t actually have vision. As far as I could tell the color was almost exact, maybe just a half shade difference and the eye tracked to the left and right with the other eye. Dr. Park then gave me a bag with a tiny suction cup and a bottle of contact lens cleaner. We practiced together how I should properly remove and clean the artificial eye. While I was at the sink I squirted some red hand cleaner into my hand in preparation to clean the artificial eye. “No.” echoed Dr. Park as he rinsed the soap out of my hand and loaded my hand with a clear soap. “What’s the difference between the two soaps?” I asked.

“Thursday Dr. Kim Duck explain.”

We then continued cleaning the eye. As I watched my new eye swish around in my hand, I did a quick mental measurement of the exposed drain at the bottom of the sink. One false move and the eye would spill out of my hand and be sucked down the drain.

“No Miss,” I didn’t bother turning to his assistant to ask for a translation. Dr. Park seemed to be reading my mind. He clearly was imparting upon me the importance of not losing my eye down the drain of a sink. I still had a lot of questions to ask about my eye maintenance but my questions would have to wait until Thursday when I would meet with Dr. Kim Duck.

When I came back to Samsung Hospital the following week, Dr. Kim Duck explained that I didn’t need any special soap to wash my eye and that I should use eye drops if the left eye ever felt uncomfortable.

________________________

Everything You Wanted To Know About Teaching English In Korea But Were Afraid To Ask

There has been an exploding demand for native English speakers to teach English in South Korea. English programs and English academies have been spreading like wildfire all over Korea. And, due to an unpredictable economy, many university graduates, travelers, and people from all walks of life are packing their bags and taking advantage of the English boom in Korea.

Korean institutions are paying good money ($2,000-$2,500 a month) and offering excellent benefits (free housing, 30 hour work weeks) to Westerners who are willing to explore the unfamiliar, pack up their bags, and teach in thriving South Korea.

This is the complete guidebook on how to relocate to South Korea and become an English teacher. This book illustrates the many advantages (low taxes, high standard of living, friendly people, safe streets) and challenges (dating, language barriers, disciplining students, getting along with co-workers) that the first time teacher can expect to confront in Korea.

Funny, fact filled and always informative, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” provides the necessary knowledge you need to make the most out of the experience. Jam packed with practical information, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” addresses all of the topics and taboos a prospective English teacher needs to know, from finding the right job and negotiating a contract settlement to avoid eating dog while ordering food off of a menu.While other books focus solely on classroom experience,“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” explores life outside of the classroom, providing you with an in-depth and often hilarious guide to Korean culture, food, friendship, drinking, dating, religion, health and history are just some of the subjects discussed in detail.Last but not least,

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” looks at the embarrassing realities of life abroad, offering pause for thought on such issues as learning how to pronounce Korean students’ names, a 15-minute golf lesson I got in Korean that increased my driving distance 20%, my interactions with my Korean co-worker “Kid” who confesses to me that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and the cheapest and best eye surgery I’ve gotten in any country. “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” will awaken readers to the transitional opportunities available in a place that shares few Western customs but many of the comforts of home.

Written by Brian Ward, a semi-qualified middle school teacher whose walked the fine line between sanity and a nervous breakdown in the classroom, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” is an irreverent and insightful survival guide for anyone brave enough to try their hand at teaching English in South Korea or who just wants to have a laugh at author Brian Ward’s backwards approach to living in Korean culture.

This guidebook also compares teaching in the USA to teaching in Korea.

_______________________________________________________

Country

Salary(Year)

Taxes (yr)

Yearly Housing Expenses

Total Remaining

Korea

$26,000 + 50% of medical bills paid

$780

$0

$25,220

USA

$35,000

$8,000

$8,400

$18,600

_______________________________________________________

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

Here is a chapter by chapter synopsis of the book:

Chapter 1 Dreams vs. Getting a Paycheck

This chapter profiles author’s friend Nick Lee, the hedonistic boozer surrounded by books, half-finished paintings and an old LP player — speaks in English rather than Greek or Latin. Prodigious nose, has been retooled as a heroic pretty boy. As Nick Lee’s life finally falls apart due to alcohol and lack of physical contact with women, the author decides to get on a plane to Korea. Upon his arrival to South Korea, he is taken back when he learns the true meaning of “Hair Shops” in Korea.

Chapter 2 Academy Owners

This chapter discusses the 4 major types of academy owners as well as which category I was working for. This chapter also discusses my “first contact” with my boss and Korean co-workers. This chapter reveals what a failure I am at teaching and includes the letters I received from Seoul which explained where I should improve. Introduced in this chapter is Carlo, an English teacher famous for drinking with Russians, getting bit by his students and his travels throughout Morocco.

In this chapter I get fired from my first job and start a new job. I am also forced to learn a little bit about Korean culture in order to be able to converse better with my students. Also introduced in this chapter is Jackie and the story of his dog “Blackie.” Also discussed is the Korean co-worker culture and what that entails.

Chapter 3 First Non-Monopoly Month in Class

I learn which class tattled on me for playing Monopoly every day in class. I also try different techniques for disciplining my students. I also discuss the advantages of talking with the students versus making them do exercises and what makes talking to the students so difficult. Also discussed is more of Carlo’s antics outside of the classroom. I finally get the bright idea of discussing the rules in class. I meet Carlo again out of class and we discuss the problems of his life; mainly how to deal with a belligerent student who happens to be the boss’ daughter in class.

Chapter 4 Bars and Churches

There are two types of English teachers in Mokpo, those who hang out in the bars and the other who hang out in church. Frankly I was getting tired of hanging out with the English teachers in bars. I decide to go to church instead. On my first day of church I discover that there is free orange juice and cookies served after each session. I meet Ms. Jung who explains to me why the street in Korea are so clean and how it affects retired Korean people. I also get my first private English student. Jackie’s house becomes haunted by a ghost and he reveals how to chase ghosts away. I go to my first baseball game.

Chapter 5 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 6 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 7 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group that is run by my Korean friend Jackie. This group becomes a great way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Next, my former roommate, Carlo, gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 8 4th of July in Korea

Author goes to a 4th of July party with his new-found church friends. He meets another English teacher named Tareck. Tareck is famous for kicking chairs across the classroom to get his students’ attention as well as living in the same apartment as his nudist boss.

Chapter 9 Kidman

Brian meets his first English-speaking co-teacher who goes by the name “Kid.” During their first time out for a hike together Kid confesses to Brian that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and that he likes dating Japanese women.

Chapter 10 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 11 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 12 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group and is run by Jackie. I find another way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Carlo gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 13 Lesson Plans

Brian reveals the most effective way to plan for his classes; by downloading lessons plans off the internet. Included in these lesson plans is sample menu that is used to help the students role-play the purchasing of a hamburger in class.

Chapter 14 Dating in Korea

Brian shares four case studies of native teachers (males) who are dating Korean women. Included in these case studies are the reactions of the host-woman’s friends, families and social network.

Chapter 15 Surgery on a Budget

Brian get learns the difference between hospitals in Seoul (where the rich Koreans go) and all other hospitals in Korea. Brian finds the best value in Korea which is eye surgery which is priced at $2,500 in Korea vs. $28,000 in the United States. While in the hospital Brian meets an American man named Roman who’s been living in Korea since the 1970′s and publishing a book about a Post-Apocalyptic New England town. When Brian asks Roman who his book publishing agent is Roman replies, “The guy’s an idiot, he’s 62 and has just had his 6th child with his 3rd wife. What kind of a life is that kid going to have?”

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

“Brian, did you join a gym in Korea?” asked my Korean teacher Ms Jung, covering her mouth as she laughed.

“Yeah, but I got thrown out of my last gym.” I answered.

“Why?” asked Ms. Jung as she leaned in for my answer.

“I asked the owner to turn down the music. He spoke enough English to understand what I was saying but refused to adjust the volume. So, I waited for him to go into another room. Once he left, I went behind the reception area and manually turned down the music volume while the receptionist was busy text-messaging. As soon as I walked back to my exercise bike a middle-aged Korean lady walked behind the reception area and turned the music back up. She then approached me while I was on the work out bike. She started yelling at me in Korean. As she was yelling at me, I looked around for the owner of the gym to come and protect me, he was no where to be seen. So, I walked over to reception to ask the receptionist for help. She ignored me. So I stood there in reception while the Korean lady yelled at me. A few minutes later the owner walked out into the work out area sipping a coffee. I walked over to him and I explained to him that the music is too loud in the gym and it was giving me a headache. Before he could answer, the Korean woman walked over and gave him an ear full in Korean. After she finished I asked him whether or not he was going to turn down the music again. ‘You must understand the middle-aged Korean woman,’ he responded. ‘Are you going to turn down the music or not?’ I repeated. He answered my question by repeating the same phrase, ‘You must understand the middle-aged Korean woman.’ We were getting nowhere. I then made up a story saying that I was expecting a call from my work on the cell phone and wanted to be able to hear it ring. He wouldn’t let up on the whole middle aged Korean woman thing. Clearly we were discussing two unrelated issues here. I decided to cut to the chase, “Are you going to turn the volume down or not? Yes or No?” He then went into a routine about how the customers didn’t appreciate the fluctuation in volume.

‘After you turn the volume down 15%, you can leave it at that volume until 2014 without any fluctuation.’ I responded as I stood there waiting for him to walk over to the radio and turn it down. Instead, he just stood there looking back at me. I pointed at reception and asked him to turn it down one last time, but he wouldn’t budge. Finally I went back to my workout bike and pretended the whole thing never happened and finished my work out. Two days later I went back to the gym and the radio was at the same volume. When I checked in, I had a sticker on my gym key saying it was time to pay up for the next month. I went into the locker room, threw my towel into the sink and decided I would wait until leaving Korea before I went back to another gym.”

________________________________________________________

Everything You Wanted To Know About Teaching English In Korea But Were Afraid To Ask

There has been an exploding demand for native English speakers to teach English in South Korea. English programs and English academies have been spreading like wildfire all over Korea. And, due to an unpredictable economy, many university graduates, travelers, and people from all walks of life are packing their bags and taking advantage of the English boom in Korea.

Korean institutions are paying good money ($2,000-$2,500 a month) and offering excellent benefits (free housing, 30 hour work weeks) to Westerners who are willing to explore the unfamiliar, pack up their bags, and teach in thriving South Korea.

This is the complete guidebook on how to relocate to South Korea and become an English teacher. This book illustrates the many advantages (low taxes, high standard of living, friendly people, safe streets) and challenges (dating, language barriers, disciplining students, getting along with co-workers) that the first time teacher can expect to confront in Korea.

Funny, fact filled and always informative, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” provides the necessary knowledge you need to make the most out of the experience. Jam packed with practical information, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” addresses all of the topics and taboos a prospective English teacher needs to know, from finding the right job and negotiating a contract settlement to avoid eating dog while ordering food off of a menu.While other books focus solely on classroom experience,“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” explores life outside of the classroom, providing you with an in-depth and often hilarious guide to Korean culture, food, friendship, drinking, dating, religion, health and history are just some of the subjects discussed in detail.Last but not least,

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” looks at the embarrassing realities of life abroad, offering pause for thought on such issues as learning how to pronounce Korean students’ names, a 15-minute golf lesson I got in Korean that increased my driving distance 20%, my interactions with my Korean co-worker “Kid” who confesses to me that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and the cheapest and best eye surgery I’ve gotten in any country. “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” will awaken readers to the transitional opportunities available in a place that shares few Western customs but many of the comforts of home.

Written by Brian Ward, a semi-qualified middle school teacher whose walked the fine line between sanity and a nervous breakdown in the classroom, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” is an irreverent and insightful survival guide for anyone brave enough to try their hand at teaching English in South Korea or who just wants to have a laugh at author Brian Ward’s backwards approach to living in Korean culture.

This guidebook also compares teaching in the USA to teaching in Korea.

_______________________________________________________

Country

Salary(Year)

Yearly Taxes

Yearly Housing Expenses

Total Remaining

Korea

$26,000 + 50% of medical bills paid

$780

$0

$25,220

USA

$35,000

$8,000

$8,400

$18,600

_______________________________________________________

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

Here is a chapter by chapter synopsis of the book:

Chapter 1 Dreams vs. Getting a Paycheck

This chapter profiles author’s friend Nick Lee, the hedonistic boozer surrounded by books, half-finished paintings and an old LP player — speaks in English rather than Greek or Latin. Prodigious nose, has been retooled as a heroic pretty boy. As Nick Lee’s life finally falls apart due to alcohol and lack of physical contact with women, the author decides to get on a plane to Korea. Upon his arrival to South Korea, he is taken back when he learns the true meaning of “Hair Shops” in Korea.

Chapter 2 Academy Owners

This chapter discusses the 4 major types of academy owners as well as which category I was working for. This chapter also discusses my “first contact” with my boss and Korean co-workers. This chapter reveals what a failure I am at teaching and includes the letters I received from Seoul which explained where I should improve. Introduced in this chapter is Carlo, an English teacher famous for drinking with Russians, getting bit by his students and his travels throughout Morocco.

In this chapter I get fired from my first job and start a new job. I am also forced to learn a little bit about Korean culture in order to be able to converse better with my students. Also introduced in this chapter is Jackie and the story of his dog “Blackie.” Also discussed is the Korean co-worker culture and what that entails.

Chapter 3 First Non-Monopoly Month in Class

I learn which class tattled on me for playing Monopoly every day in class. I also try different techniques for disciplining my students. I also discuss the advantages of talking with the students versus making them do exercises and what makes talking to the students so difficult. Also discussed is more of Carlo’s antics outside of the classroom. I finally get the bright idea of discussing the rules in class. I meet Carlo again out of class and we discuss the problems of his life; mainly how to deal with a belligerent student who happens to be the boss’ daughter in class.

Chapter 4 Bars and Churches

There are two types of English teachers in Mokpo, those who hang out in the bars and the other who hang out in church. Frankly I was getting tired of hanging out with the English teachers in bars. I decide to go to church instead. On my first day of church I discover that there is free orange juice and cookies served after each session. I meet Ms. Jung who explains to me why the street in Korea are so clean and how it affects retired Korean people. I also get my first private English student. Jackie’s house becomes haunted by a ghost and he reveals how to chase ghosts away. I go to my first baseball game.

Chapter 5 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 6 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 7 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group that is run by my Korean friend Jackie. This group becomes a great way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Next, my former roommate, Carlo, gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 8 4th of July in Korea

Author goes to a 4th of July party with his new-found church friends. He meets another English teacher named Tareck. Tareck is famous for kicking chairs across the classroom to get his students’ attention as well as living in the same apartment as his nudist boss.

Chapter 9 Kidman

Brian meets his first English-speaking co-teacher who goes by the name “Kid.” During their first time out for a hike together Kid confesses to Brian that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and that he likes dating Japanese women.

Chapter 10 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 11 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 12 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group and is run by Jackie. I find another way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Carlo gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 13 Lesson Plans

Brian reveals the most effective way to plan for his classes; by downloading lessons plans off the internet. Included in these lesson plans is sample menu that is used to help the students role-play the purchasing of a hamburger in class.

Chapter 14 Dating in Korea

Brian shares four case studies of native teachers (males) who are dating Korean women. Included in these case studies are the reactions of the host-woman’s friends, families and social network.

Chapter 15 Surgery on a Budget

Brian get learns the difference between hospitals in Seoul (where the rich Koreans go) and all other hospitals in Korea. Brian finds the best value in Korea which is eye surgery which is priced at $2,500 in Korea vs. $28,000 in the United States. While in the hospital Brian meets an American man named Roman who’s been living in Korea since the 1970′s and publishing a book about a Post-Apocalyptic New England town. When Brian asks Roman who his book publishing agent is Roman replies, “The guy’s an idiot, he’s 62 and has just had his 6th child with his 3rd wife. What kind of a life is that kid going to have?”

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

“Our South American tour to Colombia is an unforgettable experience that may very well change your life forever. You will be introduced to literally hundreds of stunning women from Cartagena, as well as other surrounding Colombian cities. Why Colombian women? They just so happen to be some of the most beautiful, genuine, and sincere women in the world. These women are extremely friendly, warm and sincerely looking for someone with whom they can build a serious relationship. No matter how much we try to prepare the men who attend our Cartagena romance tours, they are always overwhelmed by these very special women.”

This is the hook introduction to the Colombian section of an internet site that specializes in romance tours all over the world. With tour packages starting at $1695USD, this might be a great way to justify taking a nine day trip to Cartagena or this may a south-of-the-border hail mary for divorcees addicted to online gambling. The personal opinion of this author is that if you are going to get into a serious relationship and possibly marriage, you might as well double down and come and start a relationship in Colombia. With the divorce rate hovering around 60% in most of the English-speaking countries it is probably a safer bet to search out a relationship with a foreign non-English speaking person than risk marrying someone from your own national origin.

The tour is pretty impressive and well thought out. For your money you are given two fully catered, special invitation, large socials. These are basically ballroom parties that take place in the same hotel that the tour has booked you into. Of course, there will be many intelligent and beautiful women there to meet as well as probably a few women who fall into other categories. The tour also includes hotel accommodations in Cartagena, unlimited personal introductions, complimentary interpreters provided at all socials, airport pickup as well as 24 hour hospitality and guidance from the website staff.

For the rest of us (people who don’t have $2,000USD to spend), there are dozens if not hundreds of websites specializing in meeting Colombian and Latin American singles. The one that is most familiar to this author is ColombianCupid.com. This website is free to use if you just want to see who is on the website. If you click on “advanced search” on the portal page you are instantly presented with a 2-page form that helps you best search for romance based on your own criteria. Say for example, you would like to meet a 30-35-year old woman, living in Bogotá, with a profile photo, who is searching for romance/dating/marriage, speaks some English, has a bachelors degree and is willing to relocate to another country. After hitting search there are over 1,000 profiles listed in order of which members are most active on the site.

What is the difference between single women in Bogotá vs. the rest of Colombia? Probably the average woman living in Bogotá vs. the average woman living in Sincelejo (for example) is that in Bogotá there is the highest concentration of quality education, therefore the women who live here are more likely to have a more academic background, the women in Bogotá speak neutral Spanish and on the whole, are more used to being around foreign people.

A friend of mine, who will remain nameless, can actually testify to the confidentiality of your credit card information if you decide to join ColombianCupid.com because he joined the site for 2 months last year for $45USD. A standard question you will be asked by the female members after you join and put up a profile picture is, “What is your job?”

My friend always made a point of answering this question the following way, “I paint fences for a living.” No matter what your employment status is, my friend relayed to me, this is a highly effective way to avoid meeting women looking for a sugar daddy.

Next, he started viewing the profiles of the many women on the site. If there were ever more than two girls in one photo he would always send the same email, “Which one is you in the photo?” The answer would invariably be that the girl looking for a relationship would be the least attractive of the two. So, if you are ever unsure of which woman is the one who is actually the one looking for a special friend, you can take it from my friend and his research that it will always be the least attractive one.

Because there were so many Bogotá profiles of single women, my friend could also eliminate all the women who weren’t smiling in their photos, had visible tattoos, had their underwear showing, too much cleavage hanging out (this means that either they are overeager or possibly using someone else’s photo) or were on the verge of black out drunk. My friend figured that probably the single most important characteristic he was looking for was a person who actually was happy and optimistic about the future. After narrowing the field down to about 15 profiles, he then started emailing them. He decided the best question to ask would be a subject that pretty much every Colombian had an opinion on, “Do you love Shakira?”

If the girl responded, “What kind of crazy question was that?” He figured he would have to scratch her from the list. If the girl responded, “I really like Shakira,” he figured they were off to a good start. He would then ask more random questions like, “Tell me about a time in your life when you did something embarrassing,” and once again if the girl asked, “What kind of question is this,” he would scratch her from the list. He ended up chatting with a lot of interesting women who told great stories about getting dumped in elevators or falling down the stairs at church. He quickly had a more intimate group of five women from Bogotá who he was chatting with at least five times a week. Of these five, there was also another girl named Diana (who had beautifully tan skin, thick lips and a funny little grin) who he was very smitten with but she hadn’t answered any of the three emails he had sent her. In a last ditch attempt he decided to send her the mother of all emails, “Where would you like to go on our honeymoon?” If she didn’t answer this email he would back off for fear of being accused of internet stalking.

A few days later he got a somewhat puzzling email from Diana, “Thanks for your message.” He quickly sent her back a follow-up message, “I have bought a ticket to Bogotá, I will be arriving in 2 weeks, can I have your telephone number?”

He still pretty much knew next to nothing about her except what her profile said that she was a non-smoker, a financial administrator, had a daughter, had no exposed tattoos and was interested in starting a serious relationship.

After arriving to Bogotá he went on about three different dates with women he met online, one of which he snuck out of on his way to the bathroom to avoid a massive bill that he would be expected to pay. Furthermore, none of the women seemed like they had the real desire or enough free time to start a relationship with him. A week after he had arrived to Bogota, he got another message from Diana with her telephone number.

He called her up from his hostel and he arranged to meet her in Bulevar Niza at Corral Burgers. After she paid the bill of their first meal together it was pretty much a done deal. He moved into her apartment building a few weeks later and has been in a relationship with her since July 2012. Their relationship is not perfect, they do squabble after my friend forgets to wash out the sink after doing the dishes or when he eats too many chocolate chip cookies but he has thoroughly enjoyed being accepted into her life and is very grateful that someone has come into his life who is willing to overlook the fact that his hair is falling out, he watches “Keeping Up With The Kardashians” obsessively and has very poor dish washing skills. And, probably the best part about their limited internet interactions is that he will never have to explain to her why he told her he painted fences for a living.
…

When the country of Peru is mentioned, one imagines a peaceful scene of an Andean alpaca grazing along an Incan stone wall. When Ecuador is brought up, we imagine a rain forest panorama of frogs jumping off branches while butterflies mate in the background. When Colombia is mentioned, we envision a post-apocalyptic city full of overturned buses, being pillaged by men in ski masks. It is obvious which country any rational person would seek to avoid while searching for an internet bride.

“48,000,000 Colombians Can’t Be Wrong” is a true adventure story about a 37-year-old socially-awkward man who decided that the best way he could deal with a life sentence of microwavable burritos and 10-hour Facebook marathons was to look online for a girlfriend in Colombia and then hop on a flight to Colombia’s capital in pursuit of a woman he has never met.

During his first month in Bogota, Brian falls in with two white, self-assured backpackers who the author describes as, “…not the kind of guys who pump the brakes before going through an uncontrolled intersection.” He is then nearly kidnapped during an encounter with a woman he met online, almost becomes business partners with a Korean man in the “diamond business” and is forced to sleep in the DVD room of his hostel due to lack of funds.

Brian quickly regroups after his first month and auditions for the part of “congressional aide” in a Colombian feature film called “Left To Die.” He then lands a job as a writer for an English-language newspaper where his first interview is with a “suspected undercover CIA agent.” Brian then gets thrown off a TV set for refusing to take off his shirt from under his police uniform. While Brian is not getting thrown off TV sets, he marvels at all the discarded construction materials Colombians throw into pot holes to lessen their depths. Because of this strategy, a bus going over one of these open trenches (full of construction materials) will occasionally sling a chest-high brick through a group of panic-stricken pedestrians.

Brian sincerely believed this trip would put him on a track towards a life of excitement, intrigue and exotic women, far from his increasing first world debt. Instead, he unexpectedly falls into a job as an extra in a Colombian soap opera, has panic attacks, watches other gringos lose their marbles and blows half his paycheck on bootlegged DVD’s. Along the journey, he chronicles his friendships, the deranged ex-pats he meets, and his struggles/triumphs, including one fateful night in a Israeli restaurant that would change his life forever.

Brian Ward, 36, got his first taste of living in a Spanish-speaking country after high school graduation. Since then, his life has consisted of traveling around the world, surviving on canned tuna at some points, pretending to be pro-surfer Kelly Slater’s second cousin and spying on his Russian Mafia neighbors.

Ward decided to compile his journals of living in Mexico, Spain and other countries throughout Latin America and Europe, with travel tips on how to live rent-free for under $25 a day in his book titled “Single Abroad: Confessions of a Boyish Man.”

His book, referred to as “a modern day version of ‘The Motorcycle Diaries’ except with more whining” by Lulu.com, a self-publishing company, follows Ward’s adventures, both good and painful, from sharing pants in Costa Rica, to traveling the European rail system on canned tuna, to surviving Mexico’s 60-year-old buses.

“If you can’t already tell, I was a loser in high school,” Ward wrote in his book’s introduction. “The only reason I got through it was because most of my fellow students thought I was completely out of my mind. My senior quote for the high school yearbook was, ‘Is the ringing in my head bothering you?’”

While traveling, nobody knew who Ward used to be, and he said he used this opportunity to constantly reinvent himself, sometimes attempting to impress women by telling them he was pro-surfer Kelly Slater’s second cousin.

“They don’t know you don’t have a job, you did bad in high school and your car’s a piece of junk,” Ward said. “You can just invent your own identity.”

Ward first experienced the art of identity crafting while living in Costa Rica. He jokingly asked his grandmother for a ticket to Colombia for graduation, and unexpectedly, she bought him a ticket to Costa Rica, where some of her friends lived.

He learned Spanish by while shopping for cigarettes for his host brother and spending the majority of his time listening to and learning about his family’s obsession with Levi’s Jeans.

“I brought this pair of Levi’s Jeans to Costa Rica that didn’t fit me, and gave them to the my host family. The whole family took turns wearing them. They were in constant circulation 24-hours a day,” Ward said. He explained that when one family member would take them off at bedtime, another person would put them on. “They’re probably still wearing those things,” he said.

Ward said this experience opened his eyes to how people live outside of the U.S.

After a summer in Costa Rica, Ward began community college before working as a valet at a hotel in Monterey, Calif. He then traveled across the country with his father and entered a four-year university for a single semester before moving to Mexico.

Ward said while he liked the people of Mexico better than any other place he visited, its bus system has created some of his worst memories. He first discovered this while taking a three-day bus trip from Mexico City to Cancun on a “60-year-old piece of junk.”

“People were bringing 50-pound sacks of chips and blankets and bananas onto the bus; all these supplies like they’re leaving the country. I didn’t understand that you’re leaving civilization for the ride,” Ward said. “If you don’t bring water, you aren’t drinking.”

After returning to California and readjusting to American life, Ward turned down a job driving a delivery truck for Doritos before fleeing to Spain, where he experienced an entirely new type of adjustment.

“In Spain, the biggest cultural difference is these people are party animals,” Ward said, remembering a time when some friends asked him to go for “a couple of beers,” which turned into 15 hours of nonstop drinking.

“I slept in the door(way) of some abandoned building,” he said, adding that when he woke up “I was just trying to think what country I was in.”

Single Abroad: Confessions of a Boyish Man is available on Lulu.com

Chapter 1

Modest Beginnings

The story starts in Mexico where the author, Brian, is camping with his Mexican love interest. After roasting marshmallows, Brian sneaks up to the cabin where his girlfriend will be sleeping. His plans go quickly array when his girlfriend enters the cabin and Brian loses his nerve. The book then flashes back seven years to just before Brian’s sophomore year in high school. It retraces Brian’s failed attempts with girls in high school. While outside of school, with his friends, Brian does a lot of inadvisable driving due to false confidence and inexperience.

This chapter outlines the challenges of dating girls in high school. This chapter spans fours years and shows why teenagers should not be given driver’s licenses. The end of this chapter uncovers a dilemma; although high school is torture, the outside world may even be worse.

Chapter 2

Adventures of Link: Costa Rica

Brian is persuaded by his grandmother to visit Costa Rica. When he gets down to Costa Rica, he realizes the family he is staying with speaks no English and spends the rest of the summer with his two host brothers who have one pair of pants between the both of them.

This chapter gives a brief introduction to on how to find practical uses for foreign languages. In order for someone to succeed in mastering a foreign language, they must find a worthwhile obstacle to be overcome; in this case it’s TheLegend of Zelda (a Nintendo video game).

Chapter 3

Marine Biology Will Ruin Your Life

Brian starts community college and realizes he is totally unprepared for his tests or the personalities of his teachers in college. He becomes a valet at a hotel in Monterey, California and realizes that people in real life are more like him than anyone he met in high school.

This chapter shows how a complicated situation like not having the perquisites for a class or any knowledge of a certain subject matter shouldn’t discourage a person from taking a class. The best way to have success is seeking out peers who can provide knowledge based on their experiences on how to succeed in community college. The later part of this chapter shows how community college a just a minor achievement and the true test comes when a person gets a job and is thrown in with a cast of co-workers straight out of the TV series 21 Jumpstreet.

Chapter 4

Superstud and Son: Vacations with My Old Man

Brian reunites with one of the oddest characters of the book, his father, and they travel across the country trying unsuccessfully to fit it with small-town Americans and some Canadian truck drivers.

This chapter exposes the superficiality of making professional athletes and actors our heroes. Sometimes we have only to look as far as own immediate family to find role-models.

Chapter 5

Korean Mafia, Line #1

Brian starts at a four year university and has to do some quick thinking to avoid being thrown out of school his first semester. He meets his first girlfriend but falls in love with her roommate and then tries to get his friend to help repair the situation.

This chapter teaches proper phone etiquette when dealing with new roommates. He also discussed are tips on how to get up for living in the dorms, a place where round the clock role-playing is common and the need for residents to bring a set of keys to the bathroom with them are a fact of life. This chapter gives the best strategy for students on the brink of being expelled from. This chapter reveals the people who secretly control academic life on college campuses; teacher’s aids. They are the experts on arranging classes, where to obtain economical furniture and trends in the housing market.

Chapter 6

50 Kilos of Bananas on a Bus Bound for Cancun

Brian moves down to Mexico to study business, while failing accounting he requests a tutor and meets the most beautiful girl in school. He experiences the worst three days of his life on a bus to Cancun, but finds out it was well worth the suffering when he finally arrives to Cancun.

This chapter shows reader how to use the skills obtained in American universities can also be used to survive in Mexico. This chapter also reveals the names of discothèques in smaller Mexican towns are very hospitable to gringos.. This chapter will show how best to deal with Mexican migration when they are threatening deportment.

Chapter 7

Broken Bottle of Rum in a Burning Dumpster

Brian goes on cross-country trip in an RV with his mother and her boyfriend. He discovers a land where animals are on the top of the food chain when he enters YellowstoneNational Park.

This chapter will show why sometimes reconnecting with one’s host country an be painful. Several near-death experiences and a broken pair of Ray-Bans mark Brian’s reintroduction to the United States. This chapter shows how visitors to Yellowstone National Park have not only to choose between the rugged falls and the revealing leather biker chaps worn by the locals for inspiration. They will also be mesmerized by other campers’ willingness to put their lives in danger to get a closer look at the many animals in the park.

Chapter 8

After Hours Partying at City Hall

Brian returns to university after being in Mexico for a year. He has trouble readjusting to life in United States but is helped through it by a cast of friends who make the Sopranos look like the Brady Bunch.

In the year Brian spent in Mexico, his friends from university have become the pit bosses of a town on the verge of anarchy. Brian can no longer rely on his old routine of going to class, eating microwavable burritos and playing Nintendo. With his friend’s new-found street credentials, not only is Brian supposed to attend three hour long seminars on wrist preparation in racquetball, but he is also brought along to participate in his friends’ verbal bashings of the local minor league baseball umpires. This chapter will also offer a look at interesting costal camping trails in Northern California.

Chapter 9

Louie Armstrong is Out to Kill Me

Brian turns down a job driving a delivery truck for Doritos and moves to the Costa Brava in Spain. Brian learns the ins and outs of living in close quarters with a group of Spanish Gypsies who are threatening to bring the entire east coast of Spain to its knees if it adopts the Euro as its national currency.

This chapter will illustrate why a college graduate should wait on paying off student loans and getting a job. If a person is going to poor and in a dead-end job, why not do it in Spain? Also discussed will be how Mexico and Spain really don’t have much in common besides a language. Also explained will be how a foreigner without much sense of direction or language skills, can navigate Spain’s 3rd largest city with relative ease. This chapter will also describe the difficulties of Spain’s proletariat in adopting the Euro as its official currency.

Chapter 10

“How ‘bout You Take a Picture of Me with Your Wife?”

Brian’s father resurfaces. He arrives to Spain just in time to board a train with his son Rome, Italy. While in Rome, they discover they have the entire city to themselves due to the terrorist attacks in New York City.

This chapter reveals the location of the most economical luxury hotel in Valencia. Also discussed is what will someday be known as the “golden age” of travel, the few months after 9/11. This was a time when hotels and airlines were practically giving away their services. This was also a time when travel by Americans to other countries was pretty rare, for those lucky ones who did travel, they enjoyed unmatched hospitality towards Americans abroad. In addition to the kindness experienced by tourists, world-famous attractions like the Vatican and the Sistine Chapel were at their most accessible levels in decades.

Chapter 11

Flying Pig Hostel

Brian meets up with his long-lost cousin in Amsterdam. Brian learns shortly after meeting his cousin Simon for the first time, that his cousin is planning on traveling Europe on a shoestring budget which has them surviving on canned tuna and sleeping on trains in between cities.

This chapter will give a description of the months before the adoption of the Euro currency in Spain. It will also give a description of the Dutch language and how it can be very confusing because of its eerie similarities to English. This chapter gives the budget needed for a traveler beginning a two month tour of Europe. This chapter will reveal to the reader how to get a cheap bed and many friends in Amsterdam.

Chapter 12

Bonjour, Avec Linda, s’il vous plait

Brian falls in love with Moroccan girl living in Paris. He tries repeatedly to call her and is forced to learn basic French to get past the girl’s mother on the phone.

The chapter will make the reader aware of what makes Paris different from any other city. It will reveal a side of the city, which despite its size and bad publicity, can be a pleasurable if the traveler can put aide his/her inhibitions of making a fool of themselves. This chapter will also disclose some lesser-known museums in Paris that are astounding in their originality. This chapter will outline questions to anticipate while entering the UK via ferry.

Chapter 13

Irish Ferries Really Means Irish Transportation Services

Brian tours Ireland with his cousin Simon. They impress an Irish film crew in one of the hostels while show-cooking an omelet. They get separated for the first time in Europe and set about trying to track each other down while not missing their outgoing flight to Spain.

The best vacations are ones that are open to spontaneity. This chapter will uncover a method of air travel that is so cheap, the tax on the ticket is higher than the cost. This chapter gives the name of a hostel in Ireland that’s a guaranteed great way to meet college-aged singles. Also provided are details on how the reader can be the life of the party, even if they can’t drink or dance. This chapter will also profile an Irish hostel/mansion that only charges 8€ a night. This chapter ends by summing up the effects of the Spanish Civil War on the lives of people who were outside of the country when the war broke out.

Chapter 14

Spanish Men Dressed as Female Cops

Brian goes to his cousin’s house in Spain the night before Carnival starts. After living on the road in freezing temperatures for over three months, they have a chance to finally relax and get back to what they love most about Europe: Spain.

One of the most overlooked tourist destinations in Spain are the Canary Islands. Their festivals, affordability and vibrant Caribbean culture combine the best of Europe and South America. The chapter will show the precautions necessary to help readers avoid being robbed while traveling in Europe.

Chapter 15

Towel Boy for the Women’s Volleyball Team

Brian moves to San Diego, California where he is reunited with one of his best friends from high school. Brian does odd jobs around San Diego until he finds what he thinks is the secret to happiness: becoming the towel boy for the San DiegoState Women’s Volleyball team.

This chapter will show readers how to get a free place to stay and a salary in the bustling city of San Diego. This chapter puts into plain words, how San Diego differs from any other California city on the coast. This chapter inspires readers by profiling a man who is able to live a full and rewarding life, despite his limitations. Enlightens readers as to where they can find the highest quality used clothing and best live concerts in San Diego. Chapter shows how, the low quantity but high quality of San Diego fans, can make an otherwise boring game come to life.

Chapter 16

Voodoo Crocodile Farm

Brian auditions for a job working for a hotel in Mexico, during the audition he has to do some quick thinking to impress the recruiter. While in Mexico, Brian becomes best friends with his roommate from Ciudad Juarez/El Paso. They attempt to visit every beach and cantina on the PacificCoast of Mexico. On one of their excursions they meet a Shaman who owns a crocodile farm.

This is the chapter which reveals the secret of how to live in Latin America rent-free, also discussed is the rise of Club Med and trends for the future. The reader will learn the necessary skills to be successful in a Club Med audition. This chapter also gives insights on tried and true navigation techniques for Latin American airports. Readers will also be provided information on how best to get a job as an extra in a Spike Lee movie.

Chapter 17

Mexico Spring Break

Brian’s job at the hotel in Mexico quickly becomes more than he bargained for. Three months into his contract, his head is on the chopping block and his boss has to decide whether keeping Brian as an employee of the hotel is worth endangering the lives of the hotel guests.

This chapter explains the linguistic impact of the Spanish colonization on the Philippines. This chapter shows readers how to decode Tagalog into Spanish and then English. This chapter gives readers estimates of real estate prices of tropical islands in the Philippines. Explained in this chapter is the typical diet of a person who grows up on Rodrigues Island (Mauritius). This chapter shows the value of sticking with a job, even if you are not the best at it. This chapter also shows the reader how to tell a Spanish-speaking person you like them in a non-platonic way.

Chapter 18

Stranded in a Flooded Taxi

Brian falls in love with a Mexican girl and is forced to face his biggest fear; traveling on the Mexican bus system. His fears and paranoia quickly become reality as Mexico is hit by the worst storm since 1926.

This chapter explains how to escape a Latin American bus terminal that is on the brink of inundation. Also explains the impacts of floods on Latin American towns and how the local people deal with natural disasters. This chapter shows readers the willingness of Mexican taxi drivers to risk their own lives in order to get international travelers to their destination in a timely manner. This chapter also discusses the cultural significance of the Feathered Serpent to the Meso-American peoples. Also discussed are how typical Latin American families spend their recreational time together.

Chapter 19

Conehead Skulls on Postcards

Brian takes another vacation with his father. This time they visit Machu Picchu. While down in Peru, his father quickly discovers the lucrative market of smuggling women’s cosmetics into the country.

This chapter gives an in-depth description of the impact of the Incan legacy on today’s world. This chapter also compares the scientific knowledge of Europe to that of the Incan. This chapter gives a thorough description of the final days of the Incan Empire as well as how various Incan fortresses got their names. This chapter divulges the true architectural genius behind the Incan dynasty as well as some unusual surgical techniques that were carried out by Incan priests. Readers will also be informed on exactly how to get a behind-the-scenes tour of all things Incan in Cusco.

Chapter 20

Mexican Dentists

Brian has to get emergency dental surgery in Mexico. He visits the first dental office he finds, one that is conveniently located on the second floor of a women’s shoe store.

This chapter discusses exactly what separates U.S. dentists from their Mexican counterparts.

Chapter 21

Mexican Haunted Houses

Brian learns just how far $2 can take you while visiting the fair in Mexico.

The readers will be taken on a trip through the perils of a low-budget Mexican haunted house.

Chapter 22

Surfing in Mexico

In order to impress a girl, Brian pretends he is related to surf legend Kelly Slater. She calls his bluff and they end up in a dire predicament.

This chapter gives descriptions of two Mexican surfing destinations on the Pacific Coast. Readers will learn more about gear and precautions necessary before surfing in Mexico.

Chapter 23

Dead Pigeons Falling Out of the Sky

Brian takes his first overnight trip to Mexico City. While in Mexico City he tours an entire pizza franchise chain and meets the river dance king outside of the Northern Bus Terminal.

A thorough discussion is given on the geological conditions that are causing Mexico City to sink as well as the rising political tensions between Austria and Mexico due to pre-Columbian relics pillaged by the Spanish. Also discussed is one of Mexico City’s most priceless treasures that not even the National Guard can protect. A profile is done on one of Mexico City’s eccentrics who is living in one the most transient neighborhoods in the city. This chapter also gives a first hand account of what it is like to shop in the largest open-air market in the world as well as an ingenious method used to have a cheap and hot shower in the city.

Chapter 24

Gil and the Russian Mafia

Brian returns to Spain, this time as a student of International Hospitality. Brian’s studying competes with his urges to spy on his Russian neighbors, which he suspects are Mafia kingpins.

Chapter gives a profile of one of the most corrupt mayors in Spain and how the city of Marbella has been shaped by his legacy. This chapter explains the process needed for Americans to obtain a Spanish visa. Also included are rental prices on apartments in Marbella as well as the most affordable method to secure an apartment lease in Marbella. This chapter also gives tips on choosing clubs in Marbella based on preferred ambiance. The readers will also know how to get drinks at the best possible price in Marbella. The chapter also outlines the impact of the Russian Mafia in Marbella.

Chapter 25

Too Much Sangria = Food Fight

Brian quickly advances in the student ranks and is put in charge of event planning. The HospitalitySchool gets more than it bargained for when Brain turns a course on Event Planning into MTV Spring Break 2005.

This chapter describes the college life and curriculum of European students. This chapter also informs readers on how to prepare for living in Spain. Included in this chapter is a look at the difference between dating Spanish girls versus their American counterparts. Also explored are the traits of what make Spanish fiestas so popular. Tips are provided on how to get an mp3 player, digital camera and electric shaver working in Spain. This chapter also takes us to the concert of famous Spanish musician, Pedro Guerra and his thoughts on pop culture.

Chapter 26

Raisin Wine

Brian spends his Spring Break traveling through Valencia, Cordoba and Malaga. While in Malaga, Brian visits Picasso’s childhood home and is fitted for a robe to take part in the Holy Week Procession of carrying around a 3,000 pound float with Jesus Christ strapped to the top.

This chapter gives an account of three of Spain’s most culturally diverse cities; Valencia, Cordoba and Malaga. This chapter also shows how a foreigner can successfully navigate Spain’s public transportation system during the busiest week of the year. This chapter shows readers how they can get a behind-the-scenes depiction of Picasso’s early career. Also provided is a sample of the rivalry of the three major cites in Andalucia; Granada, Sevilla and Malaga. This chapter will show how the Moors shaped what now-a-days is known as Spanish culture. The reader will also learn how not all Spanish provinces grow up speaking Spanish and the current international trade obstacles faced by young Spanish professionals. This chapter will take readers on a tour of the last Christian outpost in existence during the Moorish occupation of Spain.

Chapter 27

Beer Tour in San Miguel

Brian is forced to learn an entire course load of work in under ten hours. His roommate stays up all night to try and prepare Brian for the upcoming week of finals.

This chapter will highlight the hospitality offered to bar patrons in Spain. Also revealed will be a look into the European personality and how Europeans are more in touch with the inner-feelings and are more inclined to offer them to others. This chapter will also describe the immaculate conception of a marketing project that seemed doomed after its initial success. This chapter also deals with the difficulty in leaving a place that one is very fond of.

Chapter 28

Indian Restaurant by Day, Club Camaleon by Night

Brian moves to Portugal to start his internship at a casino on an island in the middle of the Atlantic. While not touring the many discothèques owned by Brian’s co-workers at the hotel, Brian watches Venezuelan television stations to learn about current events happening around the world.

This chapter describes the a foreigner’s arrival to an island most people couldn’t locate on the map. This chapter describes the experience of a foreigner in a country in which he cannot speak the language. This chapter describes the hierarchy that exists in hotels as well as the tasks performed by a person who can’t even properly slice a tomato. Also provided is an overview of the most prominent night clubs on the island, as well as the women who inhabit them. This chapter describes what it’s like to get worked on by a Portuguese surgeon who cannot communicate to his patient in their native language as well as an overview of the difference between Portuguese and American doctors. Also discussed is the overly humane treatment of hooligans by Portuguese police.

Chapter 29

No Size Medium Underwear?

Brian gets a job offer in Dominican Republic, and upon arriving to the island, he is alarmed to learn the hotel is run by the French and can only marginally communicate with his co-workers. He becomes friends with the only two other people at the hotel who speak English, a Greek tennis instructor and his Israeli assistant.

The chapter describes the sharp contrasts that exist between Club Med Ixtapa and Club Med Punta Cana. The readers will learn about the best spots to snorkel in Punta Cana as well as a sample of village life in Club Med. Three Dominican cities will be described; Bavaro, La Romana and Higuey. The influence of Haiti on the Dominican Republic is also discussed in detail. Tips are given to the traveler when they face a life and death situation after falling asleep on an air mattress in the Caribbean Sea. This chapter describes two popular industries in the urban parts of the Dominican Republic; rotisserie chicken and pirated DVD’s. Also discussed is the struggle by a foreigner in obtaining the desired services and products.

Chapter 30

Patience

Brian returns to Mexico to recapture the Mexican girl he originally tried to impress three years before by claiming to be Kelly Slater’s second cousin.

This chapter describes the author’s final run-in with his one true love. This chapter describes exactly what makes Latin girls different from any other girls the author has met. Chapter deals with the inconsistencies faced when comparing an actual woman to someone who he has been corresponding with via the internet.

“Take whatever you can get, instead of going after what you really want. Take what’s safe and certain. Settle. Start paying down a mortgage and quit whining about your dreams,” I would often hear when asking others for career advice.

I guess what people figure is that if they drone on you for long enough about what they want you to do, you’ll forget what it is you really want to do. I had to take a few days just to clear out my head of all the advice everyone had given me and try to remember what my dream was in the first place.

“What do you really want to do in this life?” I asked myself. “Travel the world for free,” I answered.

I decided to visit the career center website at Chico State. I entered “Teaching English in Korea” into the search engine and clicked on the link. A table then popped up on my screen comparing a teaching job in Korea with one in an American high school.

Country

Salary(Year)

Yearly Taxes

Yearly Housing Expenses

Total Remaining

Korea

$26,000 + 50% of medical bills paid

$780

$0

$25,220

USA

$35,000

$8,000

$8,400

$18,600

It was time for a different path in life. After seven months of waiting, I finally got a job with a Korean recruiter in Seoul (before any native English teacher can be hired from the US or Canada, they first need to go through a recruiting agency that places them in a job in Korea – most of the recruiting agencies are located in Korea). My new job was at an English academy in Southern South Korea. All I needed now was to get a South Korean visa.

I got my visa in the mail a few weeks later and departed for Korea in March of 2010. As I was clearing customs in Seoul, I ran into another American who was also coming to Korea to be a teacher. I recognized him from the San Francisco airport, he was probably the only person in Korea with a mullet. Not only did he arrive to Korea with a haircut seen sparsely outside of North American trailer parks, he had gone out of his way to sculpt the tail into a “V.” My conversation with him would be repeated thousands of times during my stay in Korea. “In which city do you work? What’s the name of your academy?”

I explained to him that I didn’t work in Seoul and actually lived on the other side of the country from Seoul. I fought hard to avoid living in Seoul. I had seen too many documentaries about the guys in Tokyo whose job it is to cram bodies into the subway before the doors closed. I also didn’t want to end up in the Korean Ozarks. I settled on a medium-sized town called Mokpo. Mokpo is a port city located in the southwest corner of the Korean peninsula. Mokpo’s population is approximately 280,000. Mokpo tends to be a few degrees cooler in summer and a few degrees warmer in winter compared to Seoul. It was also one of the few cities in Korea whose name I can pronounce.

If you ask anyone Korean from Seoul what they think of Mokpo, they will promptly turn up their nose at you and say, “Mokpo not Korea,” meaning that Mokpo is a “cultural backwoods” compared to Seoul – or in other words, Mokpo is to Korea what Hillsboro, West Virginia is to the United States. Or to be put another way, Mokpo is to Korea what David Hasselhoff is to acting, it’s ok to joke about it with your friends but it doesn’t make for polite dinner conversation when you’re hosting important guests over for dinner.

__________________________________________________

Everything You Wanted To Know About Teaching English In Korea But Were Afraid To Ask

There has been an exploding demand for native English speakers to teach English in South Korea. English programs and English academies have been spreading like wildfire all over Korea. And, due to an unpredictable economy, many university graduates, travelers, and people from all walks of life are packing their bags and taking advantage of the English boom in Korea.

Korean institutions are paying good money ($2,000-$2,500 a month) and offering excellent benefits (free housing, 30 hour work weeks) to Westerners who are willing to explore the unfamiliar, pack up their bags, and teach in thriving South Korea.

This is the complete guidebook on how to relocate to South Korea and become an English teacher. This book illustrates the many advantages (low taxes, high standard of living, friendly people, safe streets) and challenges (dating, language barriers, disciplining students, getting along with co-workers) that the first time teacher can expect to confront in Korea.

Funny, fact filled and always informative, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” provides the necessary knowledge you need to make the most out of the experience. Jam packed with practical information, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” addresses all of the topics and taboos a prospective English teacher needs to know, from finding the right job and negotiating a contract settlement to avoid eating dog while ordering food off of a menu.While other books focus solely on classroom experience,“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” explores life outside of the classroom, providing you with an in-depth and often hilarious guide to Korean culture, food, friendship, drinking, dating, religion, health and history are just some of the subjects discussed in detail.Last but not least,

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” looks at the embarrassing realities of life abroad, offering pause for thought on such issues as learning how to pronounce Korean students’ names, a 15-minute golf lesson I got in Korean that increased my driving distance 20%, my interactions with my Korean co-worker “Kid” who confesses to me that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and the cheapest and best eye surgery I’ve gotten in any country. “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” will awaken readers to the transitional opportunities available in a place that shares few Western customs but many of the comforts of home.

Written by Brian Ward, a semi-qualified middle school teacher whose walked the fine line between sanity and a nervous breakdown in the classroom, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” is an irreverent and insightful survival guide for anyone brave enough to try their hand at teaching English in South Korea or who just wants to have a laugh at author Brian Ward’s backwards approach to living in Korean culture.

This guidebook also compares teaching in the USA to teaching in Korea.

_______________________________________________________

Country

Salary(Year)

Yearly Taxes

Yearly Housing Expenses

Total Remaining

Korea

$26,000 + 50% of medical bills paid

$780

$0

$25,220

USA

$35,000

$8,000

$8,400

$18,600

_______________________________________________________

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

Here is a chapter by chapter synopsis of the book:

Chapter 1 Dreams vs. Getting a Paycheck

This chapter profiles author’s friend Nick Lee, the hedonistic boozer surrounded by books, half-finished paintings and an old LP player — speaks in English rather than Greek or Latin. Prodigious nose, has been retooled as a heroic pretty boy. As Nick Lee’s life finally falls apart due to alcohol and lack of physical contact with women, the author decides to get on a plane to Korea. Upon his arrival to South Korea, he is taken back when he learns the true meaning of “Hair Shops” in Korea.

Chapter 2 Academy Owners

This chapter discusses the 4 major types of academy owners as well as which category I was working for. This chapter also discusses my “first contact” with my boss and Korean co-workers. This chapter reveals what a failure I am at teaching and includes the letters I received from Seoul which explained where I should improve. Introduced in this chapter is Carlo, an English teacher famous for drinking with Russians, getting bit by his students and his travels throughout Morocco.

In this chapter I get fired from my first job and start a new job. I am also forced to learn a little bit about Korean culture in order to be able to converse better with my students. Also introduced in this chapter is Jackie and the story of his dog “Blackie.” Also discussed is the Korean co-worker culture and what that entails.

Chapter 3 First Non-Monopoly Month in Class

I learn which class tattled on me for playing Monopoly every day in class. I also try different techniques for disciplining my students. I also discuss the advantages of talking with the students versus making them do exercises and what makes talking to the students so difficult. Also discussed is more of Carlo’s antics outside of the classroom. I finally get the bright idea of discussing the rules in class. I meet Carlo again out of class and we discuss the problems of his life; mainly how to deal with a belligerent student who happens to be the boss’ daughter in class.

Chapter 4 Bars and Churches

There are two types of English teachers in Mokpo, those who hang out in the bars and the other who hang out in church. Frankly I was getting tired of hanging out with the English teachers in bars. I decide to go to church instead. On my first day of church I discover that there is free orange juice and cookies served after each session. I meet Ms. Jung who explains to me why the street in Korea are so clean and how it affects retired Korean people. I also get my first private English student. Jackie’s house becomes haunted by a ghost and he reveals how to chase ghosts away. I go to my first baseball game.

Chapter 5 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 6 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 7 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group that is run by my Korean friend Jackie. This group becomes a great way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Next, my former roommate, Carlo, gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 8 4th of July in Korea

Author goes to a 4th of July party with his new-found church friends. He meets another English teacher named Tareck. Tareck is famous for kicking chairs across the classroom to get his students’ attention as well as living in the same apartment as his nudist boss.

Chapter 9 Kidman

Brian meets his first English-speaking co-teacher who goes by the name “Kid.” During their first time out for a hike together Kid confesses to Brian that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and that he likes dating Japanese women.

Chapter 10 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 11 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 12 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group and is run by Jackie. I find another way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Carlo gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 13 Lesson Plans

Brian reveals the most effective way to plan for his classes; by downloading lessons plans off the internet. Included in these lesson plans is sample menu that is used to help the students role-play the purchasing of a hamburger in class.

Chapter 14 Dating in Korea

Brian shares four case studies of native teachers (males) who are dating Korean women. Included in these case studies are the reactions of the host-woman’s friends, families and social network.

Chapter 15 Surgery on a Budget

Brian get learns the difference between hospitals in Seoul (where the rich Koreans go) and all other hospitals in Korea. Brian finds the best value in Korea which is eye surgery which is priced at $2,500 in Korea vs. $28,000 in the United States. While in the hospital Brian meets an American man named Roman who’s been living in Korea since the 1970′s and publishing a book about a Post-Apocalyptic New England town. When Brian asks Roman who his book publishing agent is Roman replies, “The guy’s an idiot, he’s 62 and has just had his 6th child with his 3rd wife. What kind of a life is that kid going to have?”

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

This is what all my Korean male friends would tell me constantly. It was easier said than done.

Of the 300 Native English teachers, 180 of them came in couples. Of the 120 left, probably 40 of them had girlfriends or boyfriends back home. That left 80 or so single teachers. 40 of those were males. Of those 40, four successfully got Korean girlfriends while living in Mokpo.

The first native teacher with a Korean girlfriend’s name was Mick. He met his Korean girlfriend at a dance club in Gwangju, which is about 40 minutes outside Mokpo.

“How does your girlfriend’s father like you?” I asked Mick.

“Well, he doesn’t know I exist. My girlfriend said that if her father found out that she was going out with a foreigner, she would be out of the family.”

That didn’t stop them from going out, but for a Korean woman to marry a foreigner it can usually have immediate repercussions in her family.

The second native teacher I met with a Korean girlfriend was my roommate Axl. He actually came to Korea with a girlfriend in Ohio but halfway through his stay he decided that he wasn’t going back to live with her and he wanted to stay in Korea. He met a Korean girl named Gloria during a private English lesson. She was taking English lessons in Mokpo because she was planning to apply for a teaching job at a university in a city called Jeonju, which is an hour north of Mokpo. Gloria successfully got the job in Jeonju. They started dating shortly after she moved to Jeonju. Almost every weekend, Axl would take the bus to visit Gloria in Jeonju. They were getting along so well that Axl decided to apply for a job in Jeonju so they could live in the same town. It took him four months of searching but he finally got a job teaching in Jeonju.

The night before Axl was set to leave Mokpo, he got a call from Gloria saying she was breaking up with him. It was too late for him to stay in Mokpo, his position had already been taken by a new teacher and his room was also taken.

Although he was sad about what happened with Gloria, he still wanted to have a going away dinner. We had three-person dinner with a Korean girl named Pam.

“I really want a boyfriend, I am so lonely,” remarked Pam while we were eating dinner together.

“I thought you had a boyfriend.” Axl commented.

“No, I haven’t had a boyfriend in two years. I want an American boyfriend I can just have sex with, nothing serious. I want you to be my boyfriend” Pam said to Axl.

I looked at Axl’s reaction, he just stared into the table as if his heart was in his throat. Here he was leaving for Jeonju pursuing a girl who didn’t want to be with him. While all along a from a girl in Mokpo wanted to have sex with him. I asked Axl why Gloria had broken up with him. He said something about her being too busy. What I take that to mean was that it was great to have a friend come visit but once he starts living in the same city, the Korean girl gets nervous about maybe this guy will try to marry me and then I can get stuck in a sticky spot.

Axl moved to Jeonju the following day. He is probably, to this day, traveling to Mokpo every weekend to visit Pam.

The third native teacher with a Korean girlfriend was an American friend of Jonathan’s. The way the American met his Korean girlfriend was during a dance party. During the party Jonathan and his friend danced with two Korean girls. The two girls were really animated and fun to be with. Because neither of the girls spoke English fluently, Jonathan had to translate everything that went on that night to his foreigner friend. While dancing, Jonathan and his friend introduced themselves to the girls.

They replied back in Korean. Jonathan translated, “Their names are Tammy and Jee Hey,” Jonathan relayed to his foreign friend. He then asked them about their jobs. “Jee Hey graduated from a top university in Seoul and she is the owner of an English academy. She also lived three years in China and speaks fluent Mandarin,” Jonathan explained to the foreigner.

He then asked Jee Hey to demonstrate her Chinese to the American. She spoke a couple of lines of Chinese and everyone was satisfied. After the party, he and Jonathan invited the two Korean girls to have a drink with them.

So, the group all got into Jonathan’s car and went to drink soju. While drinking soju together the girls dared Jonathan and his American friend to take each girl in their arms and squat them to see who was the strongest. The American guy was a little nervous about the dare but Jonathan accepted freely.

The night went so well they ended up going to the Karaoke with the girls after drinks. In the Karaoke they drank plum wine and started to play a “numbers” game. The rules of the game were simple. Jonathan would write different numbers on tiny scraps of paper and put them in a hat.

On another piece of paper he would write a list of 1-10 with the instructions of what the person had to do if they drew a certain number. (ex: #1 – Go to the front of the karaoke and do a sexy dance, #4 – You must drink a shot of soju, #8 – You must sing a song while another person rides piggy back on you). It was a genius game.

As luck would have it, Jonathan’s foreign friend pulled the #8 and asked Jee Hey to ride on his back while he sang, “Hurts So Good” by John Cougar. Before Jee Hey climbed onto his back she took off her shoes and then latched her legs around his waist. By the time the foreigner got to the chorus of “Hurts So Good” Jee Hey had started kissing the American on the neck. He was nervous, out of breath and wasn’t known for his vocal skills but he continued to sing the entire song. At the end of the song they hugged each other and he thanked her for participating.

By the time it reached 4 a.m. the girls were tired and wanted to go home and take a rest. Before they left, the foreign guy asked Jee Hey for her number through Jonathan. A 12 minute conversation in Korean followed between Jee Hey and Jonathan. “What are you talking about?” asked the foreigner. “She says that she really likes you but she’s not sure if you want to go out with her.” said Jonathan. “Why not?” asked the foreigner. “She was divorced from her first husband and wonders if you still want to go out with her.” replied Jonathan. “What’s the big deal?” wondered the foreigner. Jee Hey interrupted and explained in Korean a little more about the situation. “She wants to know if you date girls who are divorced.” Jonathan translated. “Yes, why not?” the foreigner responded. “Well, in Korea, sometimes Korean men don’t like dating women who have divorced.” reported Jonathan. The whole situation was finally cleared up and Jee Hey agreed to give the foreigner her phone number and they went on another date a few months down the road. After that they broke up due to language problems and the fact that Jee Hey was working six days a week, going to church on Sundays and also trying to run her academy.

The fourth native teacher with a Korean girlfriend was a friend of Ole’s. The inter-racial couple was the most visible couple in Mokpo. They went out often and were very popular because they both had such an extended network of friends. One night the Korean girl invited some male Korean friends of hers to come out on a date with her and her native English teacher boyfriend. The night started out pleasant enough, everyone was getting along fine until one of her Korean male friends had a little too much to drink and started causing a commotion. Finally he stood up at their table and berated her in Korean for having a foreign boyfriend and called her trash in front of their Korean friends, a very uncomfortable situation for everyone. They continued dating but had to reduce their circle of friends to avoid future outbreaks.

Added to the social pressures of a Korean person dating a foreign person are the language problems (3% of Korean girls in Mokpo speak fluent English), cultural issues (Korean girls usually aren’t allowed to be alone in a single man’s apartment) and the religious issue (65% of Koreans are Christian and this means their daughters can’t have sex before marriage). When I say a Korean person is a Christian, this is not the same as a North American Christian. Korean Christians go to church up to six days week and spend anywhere from 20-60 hours a week in church. For them it is not so much a religion but a lifestyle choice.

Dating in Korea is similar to every other country; complicated.

__________________________________________________

Everything You Wanted To Know About Teaching English In Korea But Were Afraid To Ask

There has been an exploding demand for native English speakers to teach English in South Korea. English programs and English academies have been spreading like wildfire all over Korea. And, due to an unpredictable economy, many university graduates, travelers, and people from all walks of life are packing their bags and taking advantage of the English boom in Korea.

Korean institutions are paying good money ($2,000-$2,500 a month) and offering excellent benefits (free housing, 30 hour work weeks) to Westerners who are willing to explore the unfamiliar, pack up their bags, and teach in thriving South Korea.

This is the complete guidebook on how to relocate to South Korea and become an English teacher. This book illustrates the many advantages (low taxes, high standard of living, friendly people, safe streets) and challenges (dating, language barriers, disciplining students, getting along with co-workers) that the first time teacher can expect to confront in Korea.

Funny, fact filled and always informative, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” provides the necessary knowledge you need to make the most out of the experience. Jam packed with practical information, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” addresses all of the topics and taboos a prospective English teacher needs to know, from finding the right job and negotiating a contract settlement to avoid eating dog while ordering food off of a menu.While other books focus solely on classroom experience,“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” explores life outside of the classroom, providing you with an in-depth and often hilarious guide to Korean culture, food, friendship, drinking, dating, religion, health and history are just some of the subjects discussed in detail.Last but not least,

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” looks at the embarrassing realities of life abroad, offering pause for thought on such issues as learning how to pronounce Korean students’ names, a 15-minute golf lesson I got in Korean that increased my driving distance 20%, my interactions with my Korean co-worker “Kid” who confesses to me that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and the cheapest and best eye surgery I’ve gotten in any country. “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” will awaken readers to the transitional opportunities available in a place that shares few Western customs but many of the comforts of home.

Written by Brian Ward, a semi-qualified middle school teacher whose walked the fine line between sanity and a nervous breakdown in the classroom, “First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” is an irreverent and insightful survival guide for anyone brave enough to try their hand at teaching English in South Korea or who just wants to have a laugh at author Brian Ward’s backwards approach to living in Korean culture.

This guidebook also compares teaching in the USA to teaching in Korea.

_______________________________________________________

Country

Salary(Year)

Yearly Taxes

Yearly Housing Expenses

Total Remaining

Korea

$26,000 + 50% of medical bills paid

$780

$0

$25,220

USA

$35,000

$8,000

$8,400

$18,600

_______________________________________________________

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com

Here is a chapter by chapter synopsis of the book:

Chapter 1 Dreams vs. Getting a Paycheck

This chapter profiles author’s friend Nick Lee, the hedonistic boozer surrounded by books, half-finished paintings and an old LP player — speaks in English rather than Greek or Latin. Prodigious nose, has been retooled as a heroic pretty boy. As Nick Lee’s life finally falls apart due to alcohol and lack of physical contact with women, the author decides to get on a plane to Korea. Upon his arrival to South Korea, he is taken back when he learns the true meaning of “Hair Shops” in Korea.

Chapter 2 Academy Owners

This chapter discusses the 4 major types of academy owners as well as which category I was working for. This chapter also discusses my “first contact” with my boss and Korean co-workers. This chapter reveals what a failure I am at teaching and includes the letters I received from Seoul which explained where I should improve. Introduced in this chapter is Carlo, an English teacher famous for drinking with Russians, getting bit by his students and his travels throughout Morocco.

In this chapter I get fired from my first job and start a new job. I am also forced to learn a little bit about Korean culture in order to be able to converse better with my students. Also introduced in this chapter is Jackie and the story of his dog “Blackie.” Also discussed is the Korean co-worker culture and what that entails.

Chapter 3 First Non-Monopoly Month in Class

I learn which class tattled on me for playing Monopoly every day in class. I also try different techniques for disciplining my students. I also discuss the advantages of talking with the students versus making them do exercises and what makes talking to the students so difficult. Also discussed is more of Carlo’s antics outside of the classroom. I finally get the bright idea of discussing the rules in class. I meet Carlo again out of class and we discuss the problems of his life; mainly how to deal with a belligerent student who happens to be the boss’ daughter in class.

Chapter 4 Bars and Churches

There are two types of English teachers in Mokpo, those who hang out in the bars and the other who hang out in church. Frankly I was getting tired of hanging out with the English teachers in bars. I decide to go to church instead. On my first day of church I discover that there is free orange juice and cookies served after each session. I meet Ms. Jung who explains to me why the street in Korea are so clean and how it affects retired Korean people. I also get my first private English student. Jackie’s house becomes haunted by a ghost and he reveals how to chase ghosts away. I go to my first baseball game.

Chapter 5 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 6 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 7 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group that is run by my Korean friend Jackie. This group becomes a great way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Next, my former roommate, Carlo, gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 8 4th of July in Korea

Author goes to a 4th of July party with his new-found church friends. He meets another English teacher named Tareck. Tareck is famous for kicking chairs across the classroom to get his students’ attention as well as living in the same apartment as his nudist boss.

Chapter 9 Kidman

Brian meets his first English-speaking co-teacher who goes by the name “Kid.” During their first time out for a hike together Kid confesses to Brian that he was accused by his ex-wife of burning down her house and that he likes dating Japanese women.

Chapter 10 Modem vs. Router

I have my first run in with Korean modems and their downfalls. Jackie comes to my rescue and gives me some much-needed internet advice.

Chapter 11 Golfing in Korea

I meet my first Korean golf instructor who gives me best golf lesson ever using no English. Using my new-found golf skills I decide to golf a few rounds of golf with my new co-teacher George and his brother.

Chapter 12 English Meetings at Angel-In-Us Café

In addition to going to church, I join another group in Korea. This one is and English group and is run by Jackie. I find another way to meet new friends and discuss current events in Korea. Carlo gets taken to the police station and I talk to him before he gets deported from Korea. I also meet my replacement who’s teaching at my previous academy.

Chapter 13 Lesson Plans

Brian reveals the most effective way to plan for his classes; by downloading lessons plans off the internet. Included in these lesson plans is sample menu that is used to help the students role-play the purchasing of a hamburger in class.

Chapter 14 Dating in Korea

Brian shares four case studies of native teachers (males) who are dating Korean women. Included in these case studies are the reactions of the host-woman’s friends, families and social network.

Chapter 15 Surgery on a Budget

Brian get learns the difference between hospitals in Seoul (where the rich Koreans go) and all other hospitals in Korea. Brian finds the best value in Korea which is eye surgery which is priced at $2,500 in Korea vs. $28,000 in the United States. While in the hospital Brian meets an American man named Roman who’s been living in Korea since the 1970′s and publishing a book about a Post-Apocalyptic New England town. When Brian asks Roman who his book publishing agent is Roman replies, “The guy’s an idiot, he’s 62 and has just had his 6th child with his 3rd wife. What kind of a life is that kid going to have?”

“First Contact in Korea: A Native English Teacher’s Journey Into The Backwoods of South Korea” by Brian Ward, can be found on Amazon.com